all you need is pain
request: @looneylupinsworld: hii could you please write an imagine with the marauders x fem reader (5th year) maybe she gets bullied or something for not having friends and being a loner and like they take care of her and befriend her and she finally makes some friends ? thank youu!!
I stared out the library window, momentarily forgetting about the mountain of homework that sat in front of me. Even though it was only the beginning of the term, fifth year was OWLs year, so we already had a lot of work. Still, it was hard to concentrate on my homework considering the beautiful leaves outside, not to mention the fact that the infamous Gryffindor boys, or the “Marauders,” as they called themselves, had also taken seats at the library tables and were incredibly loud. I turned my attention away from the orange and yellow covering the landscape and back towards the essay I was working on, but I couldn’t get myself to focus with the incessant chatter and laughter from a few tables down. I sighed and packed up my work, knowing I’d surely be able to get more work done in my dorm without so much noise.
I strolled through the corridors of the castle, taking in my surroundings and humming one of my favorite Muggle songs I listened to back at home. I was looking at one of the portraits on the wall — a particularly beautiful one with a girl in a flower garden — when I ran into someone and dropped all my books on the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” I stuttered out, while hurrying to gather all my things back into my arms.
I heard a girl scoff. “Watch where you’re going next time. If you had messed up my robes I’d have to get you to pay for them.”
I picked up my last book and finally looked up, my eyes meeting those of a Slytherin girl, although I didn’t know her name. She had never talked to me before, but I had seen her parading around the castle with her crew of Slytherins: Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa and Bellatrix Black, Severus Snape, and the like. I hurriedly apologized to her again and rushed off, not wanting to prolong our interaction.
Somehow, I managed to get all my work done, but the next day I had already been assigned plenty more. I trudged through the corridors on the way to my next class, arms weighted down with mounds of books and parchment. As I turned the corner, I saw the girl from the previous night, plus some of her gang. They met eyes with me briefly, but I turned to stare straight in front of me and walked as quickly as I could past them.
“Not so fast, Wilson,” I heard, right as I was about to turn out of their sight. I took a deep breath and turned around to see none other than Lucius Malfoy sneering in my direction.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” he asked, feigning interest. When I didn’t answer, he snarled, “Answer me when I speak to you! Or are you too much of a scaredy-cat? Seems weird to me that they’d put a timid little mouse in the house of the lion.”
I mumbled, “I was just going to the library.”
The whole group laughed, sharing meaningful glances between one another, smirking and snickering at me.
This time, Bellatrix spoke up. “Wow, Wilson. We all knew you were a loser, but I never would’ve expected that you’d be such a weirdo that you couldn’t even find another weirdo to do homework with you. I mean, you may be a loser but at least you get good grades. It must be a shame to have nobody even like you enough to get homework answers from you.”
I shook my head and turned around, walking the rest of the way to the library. I knew that would probably upset them, since they didn’t tell me I could leave, but I didn’t want to just stand there and let them keep harassing me. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t mind not having many friends, but I also knew there was some truth in what Bellatrix had said. I was known for being smart, and yet nobody ever asked me for help on homework or assignments, much less to help them study. I had never really tried to make friends with anybody, and I generally liked being alone, but I suppose maybe it would’ve been nice to have someone to talk to or laugh with every now and again. Of course, the other girls in my dorm were perfectly nice to me, but they all were in their own little friend group, and I was never included in the things they did. I figured that after five years it was too late to try and make friends, so I just shook my head to myself and got started with my homework for the night.
I tried to avoid the group of Slytherins after that, because as I figured, they were not happy that I had left before we were done with “our little chat,” as they called it. The few times I did pass them in the halls, they made snide remarks, but we didn’t really have any more interactions like the first one, since there were generally other students or professors in the halls when they would see me. So, thankfully, I was able to avoid being stuck in a similar situation for a while.
I didn’t really know why they seemed to have it out for me, but I knew that the only way they really knew who I was was because I had run into that girl one night. They didn’t even really seem to have a problem with me — I figured that they just picked on me because I was easy. I didn’t stand up for myself and I didn’t have any friends to stand up for me either. Or maybe they picked on me in hopes that they could get to the Marauders, who had pranked them more times than anyone could count. They knew that I wasn’t friends with the Marauders, but they also knew that we were in the same house and the same year, and they sarcastically asked me many times if I was going to go ask them for help. Although I could tell they were trying to be patronizing when they said I should go get the Marauders to help if I couldn’t handle them on my own, I was fairly certain that they somewhat hoped that I would, so that they could have an opportunity to get back at them for all the things the Marauders had done to them in the past.
A few weeks later, they caught me again when I was on the way to class. This time, they cut to the chase.
“Look, Wilson. Our deal is this: either you start telling us about how to ruin the pranks of those boys in your year, or we make your life miserable.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know them.”
Bellatrix, who was the one talking to me at the moment, scoffed. “You’re in the same year and the same house. The only way you wouldn’t know them is if they’re trying to avoid you. Which I guess wouldn’t be surprising considering that everyone else seems to, otherwise you might actually have some friends.”
I looked around uncomfortably, trying not to meet her eyes. “They don’t avoid me, we’re just not really friends. And I don’t really want to sell you information anyway.”
The group looked at each other before Bellatrix responded, “Fine, then. Get ready to see a lot more of us.”
I continued to try to avoid them, but they lived up to their promise. Every few days they would catch me in the corridors as I was heading to class or the library, and they would pick on me, tease me, call me names, and generally belittle me. After a while, though, I learned to live with it, since it seemed that their insults were fairly limited. All they would say was that I was a loser, a loner, a nobody with no friends. I knew I had no friends, so I tried to not mind, although I can’t deny that their insults started to get to me eventually, and I started to wonder whether maybe I was just so weird that nobody wanted to be friends with me at all. I had always thought that it was just because I was too shy to try and make friends, but maybe they were right, and people would want to be my friend if I wasn’t such a loser.
After a few weeks of teasing, they seemed to get bored, and started to escalate things to physical harassment. They would push me around, and sometimes even hit me, just to try to get a reaction out of me. I was surprised that they would go to this much effort just to try to get back at the Marauders, but I supposed that they had a reputation to uphold and the incessant pranks were making it difficult for them to maintain the respect they wanted, and they somehow figured that if I got tired enough of their treatment that I would go to the Marauders and get them to deal with it. I couldn’t possibly understand the logic of the plan, but I figured that they hoped that if the Marauders got involved, they could blackmail, threaten, or scare them somehow into not pranking them anymore. Either way, I thought they would have realized by that point that I wasn’t the way for them to get what they wanted, but maybe by then they just enjoyed picking on me.
This trend of teasing continued for quite a while, and I was starting to feel drained. I was tired of worrying about where they were at all moments of the day, and I was tired of trying to cover up the fact that they had been hurting me — physically and mentally. Although nobody really looked out for me most of the time, the girls in my dorm had noticed something was up, and tried to get an answer out of me. I didn’t want to tell them that I was being picked on, so I tried to make excuses, even if they weren’t particularly believable.
Eventually, they seemed to get bored again, and this time escalated it further. The first time they ever hexed me was when they were asking again for me to give them a chance to get back at the Marauders. When I said no, they hexed me. It wasn’t really harmful, and it wore off in a few minutes, but it still signified a new level of the degree they would go to. I left that particular meeting shaken up, but still not willing to bring the situation to anyone’s attention.
As the weeks went by, it got more and more difficult to hide what was going on from the girls in my dorm. There were multiple times that I was late getting somewhere, or they saw the aftermath of an interaction — whether that was bruises on my arms or evidence of a hex. I still tried to deny anything was happening, but they were too smart for my excuses, and they eventually figured out that someone was picking on me. From that point, it wasn’t hard for them to figure out who it was. Apparently, although they didn’t tell me this, they decided to give those Slytherins a piece of their mind, and try to convince them to stop.
I didn’t know that the girls had done this until the day after their confrontation. When the Slytherins caught me in the corridors that day, I could tell that something was different. Instead of their usual attitude, which treated me more as a plaything, they seemed genuinely angry, which surprised me, since I had no recollection of doing anything in particular to upset them.
Lucius was the first one to talk to me. “Who else have you told?”
I stared at him blankly before responding, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He laughed coldly. “Don’t play that innocent game. We all know you went and told your little friends about what was going on, who else have you told? You’re a goody-goody, so no doubt you’ve told a professor. Who have you told?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t said anything to anyone.”
“Well, then how did those girls in your year know that we were having these little meetings?”
“I—I don’t know. I didn’t tell them.”
I was starting to get scared at this point. In the past, they hadn’t really done anything to actually harm me, but up to this point they hadn’t really been angry. Now that they were, I didn’t know to what extent they would go to take out their anger. Thankfully, before I could find out, a professor turned the corner, so they backed away. However, before we could part ways, I saw a look on their faces that said, unmistakably, I ought to prepare myself for the next time we meet.
Later, the girls in my dorm confronted me. They told me that they had talked to the Slytherins, and that they knew they had been picking on me. I said that I already knew about their conversation, so they asked if they had done something again today. Now knowing that they already generally knew what was happening, I figured that there was no reason to deny anything anymore.
“They stopped me today in the halls, but they didn’t really do anything.”
The girls looked at each other before Lily spoke. “Do you think they’re going to do something?”
I nodded. “Before they walked away, they had this look on their faces, like they wanted to do something really bad. But they didn’t have time to do it.”
They looked concerned, but I waved it off and said it would be fine. They hadn’t ever really done anything to hurt me before, so I figured they wouldn’t really do anything too bad.
The next day, they saw me again. This time, it was the evening, so professors were less likely to be roaming the halls. I had just left the library, yet again trying to escape the ruckus of the Marauders. I tried to turn away when I saw them, but they noticed me before I could.
“Ah, Wilson, we meet again,” said Severus.
I backed towards the other side of the corridor.
“Don’t act so afraid. You brought yourself into this. Let this serve as a reminder that we have a deal. If you want this to stop, you have to follow through with the deal and let us get back at the group that has humiliated us all these years. If not, nothing changes. Understood?”
I nodded, afraid of the raised wands pointed towards me. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
Severus laughed. “It’s too late for that now, isn’t it?”
Before I could prepare myself, I heard a word I had never heard outside of a classroom. I knew that these people would do awful things, but I never thought that even they would go to this level of cruelty. And yet…
“Crucio!”
I wasn’t sure who said it or how long the spell was working. All I knew was pain coursing through my body — every bone, muscle, and vein in my body screaming with shooting, burning pain. It was worse than any pain I had ever felt before. I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t think; I could only feel, and I could only feel pain. It was the purest pain I had ever experienced, and I could do nothing about it. I could feel myself writhing on the ground like a bug that’s been stepped on, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up. My vision was covered with bright white, with pain. All I felt was pain.
I didn’t know how long it had been happening, but somewhere in the distance — or, perhaps, right next to me, but sounding distant due to my decreased senses — I heard someone shout “Expelliarmus!” and the pain started to ebb away. Even once my body had stopped burning with pain, I remained lying down with my eyes closed, willing myself to get up. I tried to lift myself up off the ground, but I couldn’t.
I heard footsteps approaching me and felt someone kneel down, presumably to check if I was still alive. Someone tapped on my shoulder, and I forced myself to open my eyes, even if only to curl up tighter and clutch my head afterwards because of the light of the corridor. However, the split second my eyes had been open was enough, and I couldn’t deny what I saw. Remus Lupin.
I was still lying curled up on the floor when I felt strong arms scoop me up and begin to carry me towards what I assumed was the common room. In normal circumstances I would be beyond embarrassed and would demand to walk, even if I was in an unfit state, but I was still in shock and still had no ability to form coherent thoughts. After a minute of walking, I felt myself being lowered down onto the familiar couch of the Gryffindor common room, and I felt a blanket being laid over my numb body.
Eventually, I was able to open my eyes, and I was met with the very concerned stares of four boys that I had never seen concerned about anything before. I shied back into the couch cushions, wishing they would look away, wishing I could disappear from their gazes. However, there was no such luck.
“Are you okay?” asked Sirius.
Remus lightly hit Sirius in the arm and said, “Don’t be thick, Sirius, of course she’s not okay!” Turning to me, he continued, “Can we do anything? Do you need something to eat? Drink? Anything? We could go get the girls if you want.”
I shook my head.
The boys looked at each other, and Remus said, “That’s a pretty intense curse… it can really mess you up. I have some chocolate though, that helps. I’ll go get some.”
I shook my head again, but he had already left to go get some. When he came back, he forced me to eat it, even though I didn’t want to. However, I supposed that he was right, since it did restore me and my senses a little bit.
After a few minutes of silence, James spoke up. “So, have they ever done that before?”
I shook my head once more. “They’ve hexed me and such, but never anything like that.”
“It’s good we came when we did. The girls told us to go make sure everything was okay when they saw you leave on your own. It would’ve been better if we had come sooner, because it looked like they had been going at it for a while, but if we hadn’t come when we did… who knows what could’ve happened. You should probably stay away from them, though.”
I chuckled a little. “I try to.”
This time, Sirius made an offer. “Well, you can always hang around us if you want. That way they won’t catch you alone again.”
“I don’t want to intrude, I know you guys are a pretty close group of friends, and I don’t want to get in the way of that — I mean, I’m not exactly the type of person you’d want to hang out with.”
Remus shook his head. “Nonsense! You seem super cool, plus it might be nice to finally hang out with someone else with some brain cells.”
I laughed and gave them a strong maybe. They took that as a yes, and told me to meet them in the common room for breakfast. They started to head up to bed, but my body was still too drained to get up and go to my dormitory to go to sleep.
Remus noticed that I wasn’t getting up to go to bed, and asked whether I’d like for him to stay down in the common room with me. I told him he could go up if he wanted, but I was thankful that he seemed to understand the language of anxiety enough to know that that meant “yes, but I don’t want to make you or myself feel like I’m forcing you to,” and he sat down on the couch next to me. Listening to the fire, I slowly felt myself relaxing, letting the tension from this evening die down, and I slowly, slowly, fell asleep.
The next day, I did indeed meet the rest of the group in the common room for breakfast, and I realized that it was nice to have a group of people to talk to. Even though I spent the first few days mostly listening and not talking much, I started to open up a little bit. Thankfully, they never really mentioned the circumstances under which we met initially, but they did sandwich me whenever we walked past a particular group of Slytherins. I still liked having some alone time sometimes, but it was also nice to sometimes have people to hang out with. They made me laugh and they gave me comfort, and they were just another source of joy. I figured that even though our meeting was far less than ideal, things seemed to have worked out for the better, and I was glad it was them who had stopped the curse that night.
Thank you so much for the request!! One thing about me is that I am definitely a sucker for hurt/comfort so I tend to like writing those kinds of stories. I know that this wasn't exactly what you asked for but I tried to follow the prompt as best as I could, although I admit I got a bit carried away in the story as I was writing. Hopefully you enjoyed! Thank you for reading!